The invention relates to a chopper for chopping up food, with an upper portion, a push rod displaceable therein with an actuation head and a blade as well as a lower portion connected to the upper portion.
Choppers of this kind are known in a wide variety of design embodiments. They are used in that prepared foodstuffs, for instance peeled onions, are placed ready on a board or in a cup fitting the chopper and are then chopped up by the blade of the chopper in that the user presses or pounds on the actuation head by hand as often as necessary until the desired fineness of chopping is achieved. The chopper is thereby held with the other hand on the upper portion. Connected to the push rod is usually a mechanism that turns it a little with every stroke so that the blade strikes the material to be chopped each time at a different angle. A recuperating spring brings the push rod back into the upper starting position after each cut.
There exists a problem with these known choppers in that the actuation head can cause pains in the hand when pounding movements are carried out. Therefore actuation heads with a large surface have already been constructed to keep minimal the surface pressure affecting the hand during actuation. A further problem in many cases is the holding of the chopper on its upper portion. In particular when the user has wet hands, it can easily happen that the chopper slides out of his hand. Also the cleaning of the known choppers after use turns out to be inconvenient in many cases. If, finally, known choppers of the type described are supposed to be produced in different colors from plastic by means of injection molding methods, each color change causes a considerable expense in particular through the standstill of the respective injection molding machine and also not infrequently through the loss of the parts molded just after the color change, owing to color impurities.
With the state of the art as a point of departure, the object of the invention is to propose a chopper in which the blows exerted by hand on the actuation head during actuation are damped to the point that they do not cause any pain to the user and/or its upper portion offers such a good grip that the chopper does not slip out of the user""s hand even when the hand is wet.
These aims are achieved according to the invention in that in the upper portion and/or on the top surface of the actuation head parts are inserted made of a material which is softer than the material of the upper portion or respectively of the actuation head.
Through these measures it also becomes possible to manufacture a large number of upper portions and actuation heads of a colorless or uniformly monochrome material and to give the choppers during final assembly a special look by using soft parts of a material of a different color.
The material of the parts inserted is preferably clearly softer than the material of the upper portion or respectively of the actuation head; especially preferred is a material so rubbery elastic that it can be deformed by hand. According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the part inserted on the top surface of the actuation head has the shape of a spherical cap. If a hollow space is provided, serving as an air cushion, between the actuation head and the part with the shape of a spherical cap, the blows exerted on the actuation head by the user""s hand during chopping are damped even better. The inserts in the upper portion, preferably at least two pieces, are preferably of oval shape, whereby it is possible to grasp the upper portion with one hand in an especially comfortable fashion. The parts inserted in the upper portion as well as the part placed on the actuation head preferably each have at least two attachment tabs which are received in corresponding apertures of the upper portion or respectively of the actuation head, and are firmly held therein by means of engagement protrusions provided on the attachment tabs. By means of this kind of attachment, parts inserted can be removed and put on again without the aid of tools. According to a further special embodiment of the invention, in the region of each part inserted the upper portion has one opening each which is covered over by the corresponding part. If the part inserted is removed, the interior of the chopper can be rinsed out through this opening.